Street Angel

STREET ANGEL (Fox, 1928), directed by Frank Borzage, from the play "Cristilinda" by Monckton Hoffe, reunites Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, the popular young pair from the highly successful SEVENTH HEAVEN (1927), in another dramatic love story. For her performance in STREET ANGEL, Gaynor, along with both SUNRISE (1927) and SEVENTH HEAVEN, earned her the Academy Award as Best Actress during its initial ceremony. This was the only time an actress was honored for three motion pictures. While SUNRISE and SEVENTH HEAVEN remains relatively known and important in cinema history, STREET ANGEL continues to be the least known and discussed of Gaynor's award winners. Following the pattern from SEVENTH HEAVEN with the Borzage style of sentimental delight, its use of dark images and interesting camera angles obviously borrows from the F.W. Murnau style of SUNRISE. It also provides its two leads, Gaynor especially, a wider range of showcasing their ability as a fine romantic couple, with Gaynor's fragile appearance of charm and sincerity.

Opening title: "Everywhere-in every town, in every street, we pass, unknowingly, human souls made great by love and adversity." The setting is Italy in the city of Naples, "under the smoking menace of Vesunius ... laughter-loving, careless sordid Naples." After the introduction of a circus troupe coming to town, the camera pans over towards the apartment where a doctor, having examining a very sick woman, informs her daughter, Angela (Janet Gaynor), to have his prescription filled immediately. Unable to obtain the 20 lire for the medicine, Angela, in desperation, goes out into the public streets where she imitates a common streetwalker to sell herself for money. The scheme fails when she's caught picking a man's pocket by a observant policeman (Alberto Rabagliati) who arrests her on robbery charges while soliciting in the streets. Sentenced to a year at the workhouse by the judge, Angela escapes to return home and find her mother has died. When she sees the policeman approaching her apartment door to take her in, she eludes him once again by hiding inside a broken musical drum belonging to Mashetto (Henry Armetta), leader of a visiting circus. Feeling pity for the young girl, the kind-hearted Mashetto takes Angela on as one of the circus acts. Outside of Naples, Angela encounters Gino (Charles Farrell), a young artist known as "The Vagabond Painter". Unaware of her past, and envisioning her as an angel pure in heart, he has her pose for him. After capturing her portrait on canvas, the couple fall in love with plans to marry. Following her accident leading to a sprained ankle, Gino takes Angela back to Naples for proper medical treatment. While there, they take up residence in an apartment where they live in separate sleeping quarters. After selling the painting, Gino is offered a job to paint the great Miro for the Teatro San Carlo church, which is just cause for celebration and he placing an engagement ring on Angela's finger. On the eve of their marriage, the policeman unexpectedly comes to arrest her. Through her pleas, he agrees to give her one final hour with Gino before going with him. The next morning, Gino discovers Angela has disappeared without a trace. Her loss brings forth depression, his loss of artistic creativity, and a destitute life regardless of his renowned portrait of Angela displayed inside a stately church.

Released with synchronized musical score, occasional sound effects, whistling and off screen singing of "O Sole Mio," STREET ANGEL is typical good girl gone wrong story. While actually an ordinary motion picture, Gaynor's tender celebration dinner sequence with the man she loves, knowing full well she'll be arrested once her hour is over, along with her having Gino believing her tears of sadness as tears of joy, is well handled. Gaynor's Best Actress win for this production was obviously on the basis of this scene alone. Farrell, who rarely gets any honorable mention for his work, should be given homage for his performance such as this one. Although not very convincing as an curly haired Italian, he gets by dramatically during its second half where his character literally goes on a brink of insanity after learning from Lisetta (Natalie Kingston), a former neighbor just released from prison for prostitution, that Angela had also served time on those very same charges. The scene where Gino attempts to strangle Angela for deceiving him after their paths meet again through the use of dark photography or "film noir" style is quite effective.

While STREET ANGEL is a rarely seen item, getting a home video distribution in 1998 with limited release through Critic's Choice Video Masterpiece Collection from the Killiam Library, it did have a cable television showing years later on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: February 17, 2011) with original musical score. Although some may rank STREET ANGEL better than SEVENTH HEAVEN, or visa versa, each is worthy of rediscovery, especially silent film enthusiasts or anyone who's pure in heart for sentimental love stories featuring the frequently teamed pair of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. (***)

Janet Gaynor stars as the "street angel," a euphemism for prostitute, in this lushly romantic silent film. Of course Gaynor is really not a woman of the streets, but is convicted up this crime and stealing money from a lunch counter, which she does out of desperation to save her sick mother. She escapes the police however and hides out with a traveling circus. She becomes part of the troupe and meets a vagabond artist (Charles Farrell) and falls in love.

His love for her inspires him to create a great painting of her. This art gets him a muralist job with the city. On the verge of marriage, the police find her and take her to prison. Farrell doesn't know what's happened to her and his life is destroyed until a chance meeting on the foggy shores of Naples.

Janet Gaynor is superb as the street angel, quite able to show passion despite her youth and she looks great. Charles Farrell is OK as the artist. Henry Armetta is one of the circus performers, and Natalie Kingston is the mean prostitute.

Director Frank Borzage creates a great city set amidst fog and shadows. This setting is used to great effect in the several chase scenes. The set design and cinematography earned Oscar nominations, and this is one of three films (with Sunrise and Seventh Heaven) for which Gaynor won the very first Oscar as best lead actress (beating out Gloria Swanson and Louise Dresser).

Gaynor achieved stardom at the end of the silent era but easily made the transition to sound and had a solid career through the late 30s. She is best remembered as the star of the original A Star Is Born in 1937.

This film was a follow up to 1927's "7th Heaven", starring Farrell and Gaynor, and in my opinion, this film is even better. The Farrell-Gaynor chemistry is so potent that at times (especially when they're dining together in his little apartment) you feel as if you're intruding. The last scene, where Charles is chasing Janet through the fog, is moody, atmospheric--Borzage at his best. An exquisite film.

With her ailing mother in need of medicine, pretty poverty-stricken Janet Gaynor (Angela) desperately decides to sell herself for sex on the streets of Naples, Italy. Unable to attract any interested male customers, the innocent-looking Ms. Gaynor steals some money instead. Gaynor is caught, and convicted of "robbery while soliciting." As she is led to serve her year in the workhouse, Gaynor escapes and joins the circus. A leggy attraction, she leaves upon meeting handsome painter Charles Farrell (as Gino). The couple are planning to be married when Gaynor's past threatens to end their happiness…

Happiness is foreplay when Gaynor caresses Farrell's feet; in a startling scene, they are the symbols of fertility…

"Street Angel" is the lesser known of the three films for which Gaynor won her "Best Actress" Oscar, and it is often mentioned as being the film in which the sweet, wholesome actress played a prostitute. After seeing the film, it's clear she is never really a prostitute; this story, like others from the silent era, makes the prostitutes very clear (without showing any sex), and Gaynor's character is not one of them (you could call her a failed prostitute). Also surprisingly (or not, if you've seen it), this performance by Gaynor is worthy of a "Best Actress" nomination on its own, as was "7th Heaven"…

The song sounding like Elvis Presley's "It's Now or Never" is the beautiful Italian standard "O Sole Mio"…

Frank Borzage, who won the first "Academy Award" as "Best Director" for his "7th Heaven" (also with Gaynor and Farrell) could have won for this film. It may not be up to Frank Murnau's "Sunrise" levels, but "Street Angel" is still extraordinarily beautiful. The photography by Ernest Palmer and Paul Ivano, along with the settings by Harry Oliver also received award attention (outside of its initial eligibility year). You'll see why. The only thing keeping "Street Angel" from perfect is the rather too ordinary, overused storyline; moreover, its celebration of virginity is taken to pretentious extremes.

********* Street Angel (4/8/28) Frank Borzage ~ Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Alberto Rabagliati, Natalie Kingston

Street Angel (1928)

What a great surprise!

Just as sound was all the talk and all the necessity of Hollywood, and just as Fox Studios has released a quasi-sound masterpiece in the fall of 1927 called "Sunrise," a few months later comes "Street Angel" continuing in a silent mode from Fox's great director Frank Borzage. And it's lively, fast, well acted, and frankly terrific.

Janet Gaynor above all, like Lilian Gish in her films, lifts this story through sheer acting and screen presence. She's a live wire and a tender victim, a fun and emotional and interesting person. This comes across without the supposed exaggerations of silent cinema, and is enough to make you forget the silence completely. Her partner in all this, Charles Farrell, is also good, though a bit stiff and pretty like Gary Cooper would be a decade later.

Equally terrific is the filming--the photography and editing, and the necessary set design and atmospheric effects (night, fog, great heights, tiny rooms). Photographer Ernest Palmer had already made a slew of films at Fox and was at the top of his game, and he had just worked with Borzage (and Gaynor and Farrell) in the equally well made "7th Heaven" the year before. It's beautiful, glowing, subtle stuff.

The plot? More interesting that you'd expect at first, and more complex, though with a strand of inevitable sweetness, too. The title refers to a prostitute, and streetwalking girls are a recurring part of the film, from the fringes. The place is Italy in the 1920s, and Gaynor plays Angela who turns to the street to try to get enough money to save her mother's life. Things quickly spin out of control from there, with jail and a small time circus and a life of impoverishment in Naples for our two leads. Temporarily. Farrell plays a painter with some talent but imperfect ambition and no business sense, so promise turns to heartache. And then things shift again.

If there is anything constant in this movie it is the good inner souls of the main characters, and so you suspect they will at least have a chance of surviving the hardship that seems to never quite be their own fault. I'm sure most of the audience identified with that then, just as I could now. The scenes are really dramatic, the interactions between the actors completely fresh and honest, and the photography fluid and modern. Yes, it's a sentimental "old" movie, still, of course, but with so much going on so well, you'll be glad.